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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22777090">An Endearing Portrait</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaulaMcG/pseuds/PaulaMcG'>PaulaMcG</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Four Shapeshifters [13]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - Fandom</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon Compliant, Fluff, Hogwarts, Hogwarts Seventh Year, Kissing, Light Angst, M/M, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Marauders Friendship (Harry Potter), POV Sirius Black, Photographs, Teasing, Touching, Werewolf Remus Lupin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 05:55:10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,207</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22777090</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaulaMcG/pseuds/PaulaMcG</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>At the beginning of their seventh year at Hogwarts, Sirius fears that Remus’s mother and perhaps Remus himself, too, prefers someone else.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Sirius Black/Remus Lupin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Four Shapeshifters [13]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2219598</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>107</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Remus Lupin Fest 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>An Endearing Portrait</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This story was written for Remus Lupin Fest 2020. Remus and his friends will never help me make any money. Thank you once again, my wonderful beta Liseuse.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“My parents like him,” Remus is saying when Sirius opens the door to their dorm, pleased to be back to this one of his homes, for one more year, “so much that they promised me he can stay.”</p><p>Where he’s perched on the windowsill, his hair is lit from behind into a golden halo around his tanned face. </p><p>“Even my mother likes him.” Remus laughs softly and gestures to Prongs and Wormtail, who are sitting on Sirius’s bed, holding a photo album on their knees. “Turn the page!”</p><p>Wormy tilts his head and twists his mouth into such a childish smile that he definitely doesn’t look like a seventh-year.</p><p>“Aww...” is all Prongs – uncharacteristically speechless – says, and perhaps he, too, is not teasing their Moony, but honestly happy for him.</p><p>They are all so focused on Moony’s new friend that they don’t notice Sirius until he slams the door shut. Now Prongs closes the album and is about to hide it behind his back. But he must realise that Sirius has seen and recognised it, and he holds it against his chest, grinning. His big brown hands are pressed over the faces of the two identical cocker spaniel puppies on the cover.</p><p>Sirius knows the album has never been only for pictures of Moony and Padfoot, but Remus bought it at Easter in their fifth year because Sirius had become a dog for him.</p><p>“You haven’t shown your new photos to me yet,” Sirius manages to say, stepping towards the blinding light in the window.</p><p>“Perhaps...” Wormy hesitates. “Remus, perhaps you should show him. The sooner you tell him, the better.”</p><p>A chuckle follows, but Sirius swirls around too late. Prongs is biting his lip.</p><p>Wormy elbows him. “Let’s leave the two of them alone.”</p><p>Sirius rolls his eyes as they march out. Feeling all flushed, with his pulse quickened, he must pretend… “I’m hot.” With a huff, he throws himself supine on the bed, pushing the puppy album aside without glancing at it. “This is no weather for starting the autumn term.”</p><p>“The second year you wish the summer holidays had not ended?” Remus asks while Sirius is lifting an arm over his eyes, so as to better resist looking at his Moony.</p><p>The fabric of the new robes is not too thick, but Sirius hates the long sleeves and the whole wizard dress code. “Right. This year even more than last… Could have stayed in my flat!” </p><p>Remus has jumped down and is walking over. “Or in London’s parks, running after bitches. Or rather chased by bitches.” The amused voice sounds close to Sirius’s ear now.</p><p>There’s obviously something important to show and tell him, as having sat down on the bed, Remus is leaning over him. While laughing at the dog, he’s not calling Sirius his Pads, in the tender way he managed again in a few weeks after Sirius had harmed him badly enough to deserve to become a true omen of death in his eyes.</p><p>“And you…” Sirius is a bold Gryffindor, and not afraid to find out. “You wish you could have stayed in the Cotswolds?” With the new friend? Who’s moved in?</p><p>This past summer Sirius finally visited and apologised anew to Remus’s parents, and revealed his Animagus form and got the permission to stay for the full moon. But Remus’s mother would not have posed together with him for an endearing portrait, or invited him into the family. However, the whole family consider same-sex relationships the most natural thing, and she in particular hopes that Remus will find a reliable partner with whom there’ll be no risk for babies. Sirius fills only one of her requirements, and he’s asked Remus not to tell her that they… that he’s become also the man his Moony needs.</p><p>The unnerving silence is broken only by the sound of pages being turned in the album.</p><p>Perhaps Remus doesn’t need him, after all, not in the way he needs his Moony – in the way he can’t bear even the thought of being touched by anyone else, just maybe by James, his true brother.</p><p>A sudden weight on his arm makes him jerk aside before he realises that it is, of course, Remus’s hand. He shifts back, and now keeps his arm still, cherishing the firm contact. But it must be meant for consolation.</p><p>Why wouldn’t Remus choose someone else, someone who isn’t startled by every unexpected touch, even when it’s not on bare skin? Someone who needn’t unlearn fear of intimacy after what… No, he wants to forget what was done to him before he got away from…      </p><p>“Look…” Remus says, stroking Sirius’s arm.</p><p>All right. Sirius is ready to listen to the explanation, although he didn’t expect to be rejected now. “Yes?”</p><p>There’s a finger caressing his wrist, sliding cautiously onto his palm, now fingers entwining with his. “Maybe look at this one only. There are other things I’d like to do before Prongs and Wormy come back. You don’t need to look at all of these if you’re not interested.”</p><p>Sirius’s arm is moved aside, and he finds himself face to face with his Moony’s handsome mother.</p><p>In this new photograph she’s bent over a manuscript, with a quill in her hand, and looking up with a frown, as if she’d been disturbed. And suddenly something small, black and fluffy appears on her shoulder. She starts, drops the quill and lifts a hand to touch the kitten – and laughs, tilting her head so as to press a cheek, then her lips against the fur.</p><p>Sirius can’t stay still, and that’s how he feels he’s himself again. Cool, and sure of managing to conceal any embarrassment, he pulls his hand free and turns on his side.</p><p>“He’s the liveliest of the litter. And we’ve decided to keep him.”</p><p>When Sirius lifts his head, supporting it on a palm, a lock of hair falls over his eye and hides at least a part of his confused expression. “He’s…” A cat. A black cat.</p><p>“You know I’ve always liked cats. But my mother… After I convinced her that a cat would make the wolf calmer, she still didn’t let our old mouser in – except to the cellar with me. That’s where we found the litter.”</p><p>“Were all the kittens black?”</p><p>“No. But I managed to introduce the black one to mother. The one I immediately liked best.”</p><p>Sirius finally lifts his gaze from the picture. His Moony’s face is even more beautiful than he remembered, the smile as tender as the one in the photograph. Now the album is closed, and a finger taps one puppy’s head gently and playfully. Sirius can’t help spotting scars from last winter, from the Willow Incident, as they shine light against the tanned skin on the back of the hand. </p><p>“But there’s a black dog I love,” Remus says, bending to place the album on the floor, before lying down with his face only inches from Sirius’s. “Don’t change now, anyway! This is how I want you. Missed you.”</p><p>And Sirius parts his lips when their mouths touch. He’s got a lot to learn; he’s got the most amazing teacher in his bed, and a wonderful school year ahead.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This is based on prompt 132: <i>Remus adopts a kitten, and Sirius is pining.</i></p></blockquote></div></div>
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